Felix Soderbergh

How dry / wet is the soil? I assume with clay the soil can be water-logged, but I don't know how much rain you get. What weeds grow there currently? That might be a good indicator of what will thrive there (some weeds do better with really moist conditions, other in really dry conditions).

How shaded is it under the oak tree? Is it like a single tree in a field (relatively high light), or heavily shaded with trees all around?

I could imagine dutch white clover forming a low and low-maintenance ground cover, but I think it might want enough light.

Violets are a great suggestion, I find them in my wet clay soils in shade (I'm in east TN in the Great Appalachian Valley, technically a rain forest). Violet seeds are not viable for long, but they grow commonly as a weed so I would just look to dig up violets from somewhere else and transplant them under the oak to get them started.

Comfrey isn't low-growing but will grow back readily from being mowed and will shade out other weeds and will provide lots of nutritious mulch when mowed (assuming you are mowing and that's why you want low-growing?), it's a common permaculture trick to put comfrey under the canopy of trees and to treat them as a chop and drop nutrient pump.

Hello fellow permies!

I'm in zone 7a (in the Great Appalachian Valley).

This is my first post on this forum (just joined to ask this question).

It is my goal to grow as much food from my suburban lawn as possible, so I have been sheet mulching (laying down untreated cardboard on grass and covering with a thick layer of arborist woodchips from ChipDrop) to replace lawn with beds to grow food in.

Because the lot is so small (I estimate less than 1/4 acre), there is pressure to maximize productivity for every square foot. The front yard is on a south to south-west facing slope, and is one of the more full-sun areas. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) there is a beautiful, mature dogwood tree on the west most part of this slope, adjacent to a ditch for stormwater (where all the icky rainwater from the street collects and eventually runs into the ditch and into a stream in the backyard). Since I assume that water is poisoning the soil adjacent to the ditch, I don't plan to use it to grow food (instead I am planting irises and flowers, and I just got some native seed mixes with grasses and rushes and other plants used to plant areas like this).

The dogwood shades part of the slope and I was looking for advice on how to turn this area into food and medicine.

In shaded areas elsewhere in the garden I already grow:

- solomon's seal
- ostrich fern
- pokeweed (more like allow to grow)
- mayapple
- wood nettles (in my opinion, more delicious than stinging nettles, but slower growing and more sensitive to over-harvest)

Would it be wise to use the tree as a trellis to grow certain plants on it? What are the best (i.e. tastiest, most nutritious, and most useful for medicine, textiles, etc.) plants to grow in this kind of shade?

I would consider cutting the tree down, but I think it would be a shame considering it's such a beautiful tree, and I wouldn't want to take that away from my neighbors.

Thanks so much!